Dolphin, the very popular open-source GameCube/Wii emulator, announced that it would be coming to Steam back in March 2023, but after Nintendo threatened legal action, the announcement was rescinded. While its team initially stated it would be exploring other avenues to go forth with the release, it has now been confirmed that the emulator would not be coming to Valve’s popular PC gaming storefront after all.
Announced via a blog post on the official Dolphin website, Dolphin’s team explains “what happened?” to the proposed plans.
Not swimming in these waters
The Dolphin team first confirms that Nintendo did not send a DMCA takedown as some outlets previously stated.
In actuality, it was Valve who kicked things off by contacting Nintendo about the matter once Dolphin announced its intentions to release on Steam. Only then did Nintendo step in to flex its legal muscle and threaten to rely on its DMCA protection in the event that the emulator was released on Steam. In fact, the blog post squarely states that “Nintendo has not taken any legal action against Dolphin Emulator or Valve.”
Ultimately, Valve’s actions and Nintendo’s response put the Dolphin team at a cross-roads: either work out an agreement with Nintendo or abandon its plans. Clearly, the latter is the option that was chosen.
Dousing the rumour flames
In the cited blog post, the Dolphin team also addressed the issue of the emulator containing code related to the Wii Common Key; an encryption key that is burned into every Wii disc to pass the console’s security checks. For 15 years, the key has been in the Dolphin emulator codebase and the methods used to obtain it involved using a mere pair of tweezers on the console.
Nintendo points to this in its letter as evidence that the Dolphin emulator circumvents implemented security measures. But, the Dolphin team, after receiving legal guidance from its own lawyers, states that in the several years that the Wii Common Key has been floating around, it “did not elicit any kind of legal response from anyone.”
In addition, the Dolphin team argues that the emulator “is not primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing protection.” Rather, it has been designed “to recreate the GameCube and Wii hardware as software, and to provide the means for a user to interact with this emulated environment.”
Curiously, the Dolphin team does admit, albeit in a roundabout way, that the Dolphin emulator’s codebase contains “only an incredibly tiny portion…related to circumvention,” also arguing that “GameCube games aren’t actually encrypted at all.” To further its defence, the team continues on to state that “Dolphin can also play homebrew and is used in the development of game mods.”
These descriptors are what the team is using to argue that while the emulator can and does run software originally intended for the GameCube and Wii, it also serves as an original platform within itself, since it can handle operations that the original Nintendo systems cannot. Not to mention that it has a library of exclusive projects of its own. This serves as a callout against Nintendo’s claim that the emulator’s primary function is that of circumvention, with the team calling this phrasing “a reach” by Nintendo.
Although this seems to be said with gumption, even the team acknowledges that this argument would likely not hold up in a US courtroom “if it were ever to come to that.”
The voyage ahead
While the blog post does contain more legalese, the main takeaway point is that the emulator is not “in any legal danger,” so says its team.
It points to the end of Nintendo’s letter to Valve, which stated that the only request that the Big N made was for Valve to ensure the “Coming Soon” message be removed and that the emulator would not see a release on its Steam storefront. That said, the Dolphin team is honouring this request.
One might ask why Nintendo, now clearly acknowledging that it is very aware of the existence of Dolphin, is merely seeking to block its release on Steam rather than take it down entirely?
YouTuber “Moon Channel,” who is both a gamer and a lawyer, recently published an excellent video where he takes a deep dive into the matter, including discussing legal cases of gaming companies against emulators in the past.
The primary point that he brought out is that while Nintendo could and does very much seems ready to hit the proverbial ‘big red button’ by going after Dolphin if the situation escalated, it also doesn’t necessarily want to. But, why? Perhaps out of fear that such a high-profile case could lead to setting a new legal precedent where the court systems could actually end up providing legal protections to emulators.
So, rather than taking it that far, in this case specifically, Nintendo seems to just want Dolphin to back off from the idea of releasing on such a popular storefront. There, the emulator would then be easily and readily available to the masses.
If Dolphin instead stays put in its long-standing weird realm of a ‘legal grey area’ by being accessible mostly by folks who are tech-savvy enough to get into the weeds of all the configuration needed, then Nintendo seems to think that such a position is ‘good enough’ so as not to represent a true threat to its business prospects.
In other words, the general audience would definitely be more keen to try the emulator on Steam, and at that point, it would seem like Dolphin would almost be legitimized in a way. Rather, hosted on its own site, despite being still very accessible, at least it remains ‘niche’ and ‘underground’—at least to an extent where Nintendo (likely begrudgingly) lets it sit untouched.
All things considered, this is definitely the closest Nintendo has ever come to really rocking the world of emulators in an incredibly major way. If history is any indication, however, this certainly won’t be the last time such a case erupts.
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